The many faces of climbing: Olivia

20 yo. 2nd year Civil Engineering student at the University of Tennessee. Moving to Boulder next summer to major in Environmental Engineering at the University of Colorado.

THEME SONG: Cat Stevens is playing on repeat in the very back of my head always, but not Peace Train.

1) How long have you been climbing and how did you get started?

I started climbing my freshman year of high school on my high school climbing team, so like six years?

2) What do you enjoy the most about climbing?
Hard bouldering and easy sport climbing, and I love my climbing friends and being outside.

Crushing Idiot Roof V6 at Rocktown

3) What are some of your goals in life (climbing and otherwise)?
I just want to climb until I don’t want to anymore. I love bouldering and pushing myself right now, but I’m psyched to someday be one of the old sport climbers that circuits all day. I also have a dream of being a crazy old lady that lives in the American southwest with a million wind chimes hanging all over my front porch and saguaro cacti all over the place.

4) What are your favorite pre-and-post-climbing foods?

Pre-climbing I love coffee and oatmeal with everything that’s close by stirred into it; post-climbing I love Mexican food with friends.

5) What are your thoughts on training?

I love training so much. Right now I’m training very little and super specifically to rehab a weird wrist/finger injury and I hate it because I love training as hard as I can with a weight vest on campus rungs and the hangboard. I think training is super important to be as strong as you can be, but you have to balance it. Injury prevention training is the most important to me right now.

Olivia on Chapter 13 (V7)

6) How, if at all, do you think your climbing has been affected by your gender?

I get spotted a lot more as a girl in the boulderfield, and I get an automatic excuse to not be as strong as I should be, which I hate.

7) Who are your biggest athletic influences?When I was a senior in high school, my friend and I got adopted onto the TBA climbing team and coached by Kasia Pietras for a few months, which was amazing. She’s one of my biggest influences because she was so good at knowing how to help each person with their different weaknesses and always did the hard workouts alongside us. She was an amazing coach in addition to a super strong lady climber that I’ll always be inspired by.

8) What advice would you have for someone trying to get into rock climbing?Use chalk and brush your tick marks.

9) What are your hobbies/interests outside of climbing?

I love music, concerts, and festivals, and I got kinda into yoga (not really) while I was injured and couldn’t climb, but I really build my entire life around climbing and training. I also love reading about serial killers. And I’ve been trying to finish reading the Eragon book series about the boy who rides a dragon and saves middle earth forever.

10) If you were given the choice of never petting any cute animals again, or never rock climbing again, which would you choose?